Max quickly hurried to the chair and spun to face the computer. Jess stood beside him and Ash approached to lean over his siblings so they could all see the screen.
"What you guys did was cool and all, but I'd like to really change myself 'til Mom and Dad get back! You said there were animal options?" Max had clicked to 'enter a new user' and the program must have scanned the room or something because his stats appeared on the screen along with his name, just below JESS and ASH. Funny how the system had updated the siblings to their new personas... but then again, it was some sort of computer magic, wasn't it?
Jess pointed to a tab "That's the animal category over there. Are you thinking of giving yourself a tail or claws or something, or going full animal?"
"Oh full creature all the way!" Max said, scrolling down to the reptilian category. "Maybe something like a snake, or a komodo dragon... no, that'd be too big in the house... oh! How about an iguana? Billy has a pet green iguana that I got to see the other day and it was awesome!" He quickly found the lizard among the list of reptiles and clicked on it. Further options appeared, and Jess and Ash helped him set the timer to turn him back Sunday afternoon.
Max launched himself from the chair, more than ready for his transformation. He pulled his shirt of and quickly stripped out of his shorts and underwear, completely un-self-conscious in his excitement.
"Okay so you're going to keep your human brain, but we set it so you'd gain some iguana instincts. We'll set out some fruits and veggies for you to eat, but if you want to change back before the end of the weekend, just come back in this room and climb up into the computer chair - that'll be the signal and one of us will change you back!" Jess hovered the cursor over the START button. "Are you ready, Max?!"
"Ready!" their younger brother yelled, raising one fist over his head. Jess pushed the button and they saw him shiver as the transformation began. Max's skin immediately began to take on a greenish hue, growing brighter by the second as the texture roughened and tiny scales formed. "Whoa! This is SO COOL!" he rubbed his hands over his arms, creating a raspy sound.
Ash and Jess watched as Max's neck widened, loose skin folds forming under his chin as his ears seemed to melt into the sides of his head, leaving a scaly ring that slid downwards slightly along his thick neck. His hair fell out, disappearing before it reached the bedroom floor, and his eyes were growing larger, changing from their normal brown to yellow, his pupils stretching to vertical slits.
"Do I have a tail yet?" he asked, turning to show them his backside as he faced the mirror. "Oh wow! Look at my face! I thinggk irm gettirn... ACK!" Max's words rapidly turned to mumbles as his vocal cords melted and his face pushed outwards. Bony ridges protruded from his brows as his mouth broadened, his nose melting into a lizards wide maw. His face tilted towards the ceiling as his spinal column reoriented itself to exit from the back of his skull. Blue-ish spines rose on the back of his neck and flowed down his spine, where a nub was pushing out above his shrunken, green buttocks. It rapidly elongated, more spines following along as his new tail grew. It was soon as long as Max was tall, striped with brownish scales that matched the stripes appearing on the sides of his torso.
There was a sudden, audible POP! as his pelvis reshaped, causing Max to windmill his scaly arms as he fell forward, catching himself on the mirror. It looked like it was becoming impossible for the boy-lizard to stand on his hind legs much longer, and as they all watched, his fingers and toes began to elongate and distend, some digits growing longer while others shortened, black claws pushing out and replacing his nails.
"I think he's almost done," Ash said, amazed by the giant iguana their little brother had just become. "Oh, look, I think he's shrinking!" Sure enough, Max had slid down the mirror and landed on his lighter-green belly, his legs extending outward on either side like an alligator's. While he'd been just over 4 feet tall as a seven year old boy, his siblings could see he was quickly diminishing, his body and tail rapidly losing mass until he was only about two feet long overall. "Well, I guess a seven-year-old iguana isn't very big! He does look bad-ass, though!"
Max the iguana was staring at itself in the mirror, turning its head slightly from side to side as it took in its changed appearance. At Ash's final comment it turned to face the two humans and bobbed its head, seeming to agree with the sentiment.